


Still Carrying the Torch for You

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Based on a song, F/M, this opens with thembreaking up and the point is them getting back together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:28:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breaking up with your best friend is hard. Especially when you're still in love with each other. But sometimes people just need time to figure things out, and Simmons and Fitz reckon this is one of those times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is from the song that inspired it! It's "Carrying the Torch" by The Generationals. I hop you enjoy! I promise they work things out eventually.

Breaking off her relationship with her best friend is the easiest and hardest thing Jemma Simmons has ever done. On one hand, she doesn’t want to. The very thought of it paralyzes her. She isn’t doing it because she wants to. It’s the right thing to do, or at least that what she tells herself. But the act and aftermath are easier than she anticipated. Fitz hadn’t argued, for which she was grateful. She couldn’t have done if he argued. And he knew it, she saw it in his eyes. Then they had a good cry, clutching each other and sobbing. Fitz had gone for a walk, then came back twenty minutes later with a pint of ice cream he tossed into her lap, and they watched their weekly movie on opposite ends of the couch instead of scrunched to one side.   
It was almost as nice.

“We’re gonna be alright, aren’t we?” she asked a few hours later, her voice more timid than Fitz had heard it in years. He smiled, a sad smile but a smile, and nodded. 

“Of course we are. It’s been what? Almost two decades we’ve known each other? If that much friendship can’t survive a measly breakup, we’ve got more issues than we thought.” 

“Gosh, it really has been forever, hasn’t it? What were we, five?”

“Yeah, about that, I think.” 

Simmons smiled, thinking back to all those years ago. It was hard to believe she’d known Fitz essentially her entire life, but it was just as hard to imagine most of her life without him. They’d met at age five, at a park in the center of the small neighborhood they both lived in. Simmons was taller, back then, and had been taller until they both left for uni. 

“Hi!” Simmons had called out, waving enthusiastically at the small boy carefully constructing a sand castle. She’d never seen him around before, and she loved new people. They tended not to be fond of her, she was gangly and loud and generally unsure of how to talk to people, but she liked them anyway. She made her way over to the boy, before her progress was halted by her sneaker lace catching on a rough branch, causing her to wall onto her face. 

“Um.” Fitz had said, moving to stand up. 

“No, I’m fine! I’ve got it!” she called, her voice a little too loud. She jumped to her feet and, other than a scraped chin and bloody palms, did indeed look fine. “I’m Jemma!” she grinned and made her way to the sandbox finally, perching herself on the edge in order to avoid disturbing his building. 

“I’m Leopold but only mum calls me Leopold. I make everyone else call me Leo. “ 

“Did you just move here?”

“No, we’ve lived her awhile. I just never come to the park.” 

“Are you in school?”

“Yeah, but I’m two years ahead.” 

“Me too!” she grinned, her eyes wide and bright. Fitz smiled cautiously. 

“I’d shake your hand because mum is always telling me it’s polite but… I really don’t like blood. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’ve had worse. I got stitches a few weeks ago!” she said, sounding almost proud. It would not be the last time. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”

“I just met you.” 

“So? You’re two years ahead like me! I’ve never met a kid like me before!” she grinned again, and a smile chipped its way onto Fitz’s face. She was infectious, even then. “We’re having pot pie.” She added, in case he needed further convincing.

“…Okay. Let me go ask mum though.” 

After that, they were fast friends. It wasn’t unusual for them to be out in the court or the park until sunset, laying in the grass, or picking up leaves and flowers for Simmons to examine, or climbing trees. Well, attempting to climb trees in Fitz’s case. It would be years until he finally mastered clambering up the branches of the old oak in Simmons’ yard with the same agility that she did. It turned out the attended the same school, and so they spent breaks together too, and did homework together, and generally were inseparable. Mrs. Fitz became good friends with the Simmons, a relationship she would keep up even after Simmons and her parents stopped getting along sometime around Simmons’ 13th birthday. Even sleepovers were allowed, and plentiful. There was scarcely a weekend that passé that didn’t involve both children in one bed, staying up as late as they were allowed reading to each other from books almost too big for them to lift. 

To Simmons, Fitz had been a godsend. She wanted so badly to make friends, but the other neighborhood kids were put off by how much older she sounded than she looked, and her general enthusiasm about most things. She was excitable, both in the sense that almost everything thrilled her, and that she was nervous. While she delighted in in bugs and plants and animals and how things worked and books, she was easily startled by anything outside her comfort zone. It wasn’t unusual for her to jump when the phone rang or the toast popped up or a particularly loud car raced by. Fitz was quiet, and it made him a perfect companion. Their friendship grew more in moments of silence, watching the color of the sky change or reading, than it did in any other moments.   
“We’ve had a good time, haven’t we?” Simmons asked eventually, pulling herself back to the present. She has her knees tugged to her chest, resting her chin in the dip between them. It makes her arms ache slightly, and she wonders how she used to sit like this all the time before she dated Fitz.

“Yeah, we have,” 

“Do you… understand why I wanted to break up?”

“Yes and no. Maybe you should explain anyway.” 

“We’re just… we’re so young Fitz. Only twenty two, in our last year of study. Aren’t we supposed to live normal lives? Go out and meet new people, you know?”

“That makes sense.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve still got my best friend. That’s what counts.” He smiled stiffly and put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled back, equally stiff. 

They studiously ignored how wrong it felt to not be crushed together on one couch cushion, limbs so tangled one could scarcely be told from the other.


	2. Chapter 2

It's been a month since Simmons ended her relationship with her best friend. Four long, weird weeks. They've done alright for themselves, really. For two people who were best friends, moved in together, fell in love, then broke up and stayed in the same flat, they have done remarkably, if she says so herself. But it still hurts sometimes. Times like now, when something Fitz does reminds her of the months they spent falling in love, slowly blurring the line between romantic and platonic until it vanished. Today, the thing that reminded her was a jumper. It was beige, and hung off of even Fitz's shoulders. His grandmother had knitted it back when they first started uni. 

He'd worn it the first time they kissed. It hadn't been an abnormal night. They'd gone out for a walk, after classes, wanting to stretch the their limbs and enjoy the night air, and it was just getting tot he time of year it gets cold at night. It had been warm that day, so Simmons was only wearing one of the light sweaters Fitz always teased her for. 

"What is that?" he'd said with a bark of laughter, the first time he ever saw one. "That piece of tissue wouldn't do you a lick of good where I come from. You English roses would wilt and freeze in a Scottish winter." 

He'd been right, of course, the thin fabric hardly helped her against the chill in the air, so she wrapped her arms around herself as they walked in silence from their shared study lab to their dorms on the other side of campus. Fitz had stopped her, suddenly, aborting her motion midstep, causing her to stumble and knock into him. She blinked. 

"You're gonna catch your death." 

"Fitz, the cold isn't bad for you, you know that. Old wive's take." 

"Don't care." he shrugged, and tugged the jumper over his head. She watched his hands as they gripped the fabric and pulled it up and over him. She'd always liked his hands. They seemed too big for his wrists, with long fingers, heavy with calluses. And they were warm, always warm, especially when he slid them through her hair or wrapped them around her wrists. He pushed the sweater into her arms, and his fingertips and the weave of the fabric filled her hands momentarily. It was warm from his body heat and it smelled like him. Cinnamon body wash and smoke and metal and.. Fitz. She pulled the sweater over her head, and as she'd pulled the arms down around her wrists, she'd felt Fitz's hand cup the back of her neck, pulling her loose hair from beneath the neck of the sweater. She let her eyes shut, just for a moment, enjoying the warmth of his fingers and the gentle way he'd always touched her. 

"Better?" he'd asked, his voice low, a half smile on his face. She'd nodded, smiling, and rubbed the weave of the sweater into her arms. She'd loved that jumper. After that night she must have stolen it dozens of times. She slept in it when he went home for breaks. It was heavy on her arms, and the warmth and weight and scent had always made her feel like she was wearing a hug from Fitz, even if that sounded terribly silly and sentimental. 

She'd fallen asleep in his bed, that night, still in the jumper. Around three in the morning she'd awoken, curled into him with her face pressed to his chest. Fitz was awake, just barely, eyes hanging heavy with sleep as he looked at her. Simmons had noticed that about him. He watched her. Not in a weird way, but just like he wanted to make sure she didn't vanish or get lost. 

"Fitz?" she'd said quietly, almost afraid to break the silence of dark night with her sleepy, rough whispers. 

"Yes?"

"Do you think it would be alright if we kissed?"

"I... yeah. Yeah, I think it would be." 

"Good." she whispered softly before leaning up and into him, and his hand wound their way into her hair, and her legs slipped between his. It had been soft and warm and new and familiar all at once. The ghost of Fitz's stubble scratched Simmons' face as he tilted her chin up. "I think I've loved you forever." she mumbled into the warm of chest, not caring how young and silly and irrational that sounded. It felt true regardless. 

"I think I've loved you forever too." he'd murmured back, lips moving against the crown of her head. 

When she'd fallen back asleep that night, she'd never felt more at home or at peace in her entire life. 

In the present day, tears are leaking from her eyes and into her tea. Fitz moves quickly from one end of the house to the other, because running to her when she needs him will never not be second nature. It's not the first time one of them has broken down since it happened, and even though they're broken up, there's still no one they'd rather depend on than each other. The familiarity of Fitz's heart beating under her cheek outweighs the weirdness of being held by her ex boyfriend. He is always her friend first, and she his. They'd promised that too early and too often to ever go back on it. When she finished crying, he didn't say anything. He just made her a fresh cup of tea and went and changed his jumper. Later that day, when she went into her room, the beige jumper was folded neatly on her pillow. She smiled. 

"I apologize for this morning." she said over dinner, looking at him from the other end of the sofa. Her feet were on the center cushion, in blue wool socks. Fitz shook his head, taking a bite of a grilled cheese sandwich. 

"Tears aren't a crime. It's an adjustment. But we'll adapt." 

"Do you think we did the right thing, Leo?"

"I don't know, Jemma. I really don't." 

His response made her frown, and even though it probably wasn't the right thing to do, she crawled across the sofa and let herself lie across his lap. He ran his fingers through her hair the way he always had. She told herself it was okay, that they'd always been this way. 

It was a hollow argument, since they'd been so close since they were in love. But it quieted her mind enough for her to let her fall asleep in his arms one last time.


	3. Chapter 3

It must be laundry day for Simmons, Fitz observes, because when he rolls out of bed on their day off from classes, she is awake and drinking tea, but still in her pajama top. Simmons had never been the type to linger in her sleeping clothes, even when they were children, except on holidays and when he persuaded her to have a lazy day with him. So when he made his way the living room and she was leaning over the breakfast bar in a baggy red flannel pajama top, with dipped below her collar bones even with ll the buttons done up, and a pair of black leggings, he knew all her other clothes must be in the wash. 

It was only after he left the room that he thought to look down at his pajamas and winced. Red flannel sleeping trousers hung from his hips. He’d meant to move them to the back of a drawer, or throw them out, or something. But he’d assumed Simmons had tossed or similarly hid the shirt, so it wouldn’t matter. He’d been wrong. 

He couldn’t remember when the habit had started. Sometime just after they came to uni together. Simmons had a soft spot for mens’ matching pajama sets, anything soft and in shades of red or dark blue, especially if it had lighter piping on all the edges. So she was always buying them for Fitz, but he only ever wore the bottoms, since he slept shirtless. So at some point, she started keeping all the tops, and wearing them to bed with boxers or sweats or leggings, depending on the weather beyond their apartment walls. 

The red pair had been a Christmas gift the year before. She’d bought them a size too loose, so the bottoms hung low on his hip bones and the neck of the shirt slipped easily from shoulder to shoulder. For a split second, seeing her sleepy and warm in a shirt that was technically his, he forgot. For a small moment that morning, she was his again, in his mind anyway, and he remembered the multitude of times he’d felt the soft fabric of that shirt between her skin and his as he pulled her close in the mornings, mumbling ‘No, not yet, stay in bed awhile longer’ sleepily into the skin of her neck as she tried to get up. 

She looked up finally, startled to see him staring, and when her eyes flicked down he saw her look sad, for just second. And just like that, the moment screeched to a halt and he forced himself to remember they no longer belonged to each other, not that way. 

"I found a pair of your socks, and a few pairs of boxers, in my laundry, I just tossed them in, nothing should color them, or vice versa."

"Oh. Yeah, alright."

"I made your tea. It’s on the counter." 

"Thanks… D’you want something for breakfast or did ya eat already?" he scratched his hand through the back of his hair. It had been nearly three months, but they still couldn’t quite get the hang of mornings. Fitz reckoned it would always feel unnatural not to finally roll out of bed and make his way to the kitchen and greet Simmons by wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in the crown of her head. 

"Breakfast sounds nice, yes." she fiddled with the spoon in her cup of tea and then with the hem of his shirt. "I suppose I should uh, change." her voice goes soft, and it reminds him of how timid and shy they’d both been when they started noticing how their relationship had changed. And now it had changed again, but his feelings hadn’t, he didn’t think they ever would, and now every time he smelled her shampoo or saw her wearing the sweater he’d let her have that day she’d started crying, or whenever she let herself sit close to him for movie night was like a punch in the gut. He could never get away from the reminders of how happy and at home she felt, because they were always together. He wondered if it was as hard for her as it was for him. He hoped not. He’d hate to think her unhappy. 

And as much as he wanted her back, he would give her all the time she needed. And if the time she needed was forever, he would give it to her gladly. He hoped that she still meant what she said, that this might only be for a little while and they’d find their ay back to each other. But he’d never begrudge her moving on.


	4. Chapter 4

“Darrel from my Monday lectures asked me on a date.” Simmons says carefully over tea one morning. It’s been nearly half a year and it almost doesn’t hurt when she catches Fitz looking at her. Almost.

 

“Oh.”

 

“I’m going to go, I think.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes. Is that alright?”

 

“What do you mean? You don’t need my permission. I’m not your boyfriend anymore remember?” there’s a bite to the words he didn’t intend, and he winces, and so does she, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes out slowly. “Sorry… I’m. That was mean. I didn’t mean… Sorry.”

 

“It’s alright.” Simmons shook her head, and she’s not angry. She feels like maybe she should be. But she can’t feel angry at him for getting defensive when she almost turned Darrel down because it still felt like a betrayal.  “It’s tomorrow night.”

 

“Good luck.” His eyes looks heavy and sad, and it breaks Simmons’ heart more than she’d like to admit. But he means what he’s saying. She knows him well enough to know that.

 

Getting dressed up for a date while Fitz lies on the sofa watching a movie feels wrong. She misses the sound of him getting ready on the other side of the bedroom wall, or the silence of him waiting for her in the living room. But, she tells herself sternly, this is the right thing to do. This is what university students, young people, are supposed to do. Go on dates. Not stay in the same relationship they’d been in since before they were really in it, with a person they’d known as long as they could remember, practically. She doesn’t wear any jewelry, most of her nice necklaces are presents from Fitz, and that’s not a line she’s willing to cross. It takes her nearly half an hour to find a dress that doesn’t feel tied to closely to some memory with Fitz to wear out with another man.

 

When she walks out into the living room, Fitz feels like someone punched him in the chest. Simmons is, as always, stunning. Her hair is twisted up in a messy bun, and she’s wearing a simple blue dress. Fitz clenches his fists in the fabric of the sofa and tries not to think about Darrel taking off the blue dress, or Darrel seeing Simmons half asleep the next morning, makeup scrubbed off and hair falling around her face, looking even more beautiful than she did done up. He told himself, over and over, the image of Simmons the morning after no longer belonged to him, she was not his to think about. It hurts more than he wants it to.

 

“I’ll see you later?” Simmons says, hand lingering on the doorknob. Part of her wants Fitz to tell her not to go. To stand up and tell her she’s not going anywhere and pull her into him and kiss her soundly, the way he used to. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all, just nods and stares at the television. So she nods back and pastes a smile on her face and walks out of the door.

 

Fitz lasts an hour in the empty apartment. He lasts an hour watching mindless television before the whole situation gets to him. Leo Fitz would never ever ask Jemma Simmons not to do something she wants to do. She is so much bigger and better than him, and she deserved the world, and if she wanted was more than him, he would happily let her chase that down. She was his best friend first. Always his best friend first.

 

All the same, he wasn’t sure he could take her bringing some square jawed, broad shouldered pretty boy back to their apartment. It had been nearly half a year, he knew that, but it still felt like yesterday to him, and he just couldn’t bear it. But he would never tell her that, never make her feel limited and never admit defeat, admit he wasn’t strong enough for that. So he texts Skye and says he needs to crash on her couch for the night, and leaves. He turns off the lights and the tv and thinks about leaving a note, but decides not to bother.

 

The date goes well enough. Darrel isn’t completely boring, and he’s certainly nice to look at, and dinner is perfectly palatable. Simmons is debating inviting Darrel back to her apartment when things go wrong. He’s smiling down at her and loops an arm around her waist to pull her close.

 

“C’mere, Jem.” He says softly, and something inside of Simmons shatters. No one was supposed to call her Jem. That was Fitz’s name, that had been Fitz’s name for her since they were children. Not even her parents or Skye called her Jem. Who was this man, this boy she barely knew, to walk into her life and call her Fitz’s name? he moves to kiss her and she pretends to feel her phone vibrating, holds a finger between them with an apologetic smile, and pulls her phone from her pocket.

 

“Oh dear. I’m afraid I’ve got to scram. Emergency.” She wiggles her phone and smiles stiffly and just turns and runs. She knows he knows she’s running, because she’s still the worst liar in the world, but suddenly she doesn’t care. She just wants to be home, she wants to sit on the sofa with Fitz and make fun of shoddy science in bad old movies. She’s no longer even sure why she came on this date, why she thought this was a good idea. So she texts Skye, and tells her if for some reason Darrel ever asks, to corroborate her story, and heads back to the apartment. She knocks before unlocking it, so she won’t startle Fitz. But when she swings the door open, she finds a dark and empty apartment, and no one to startle.

 

Simmons isn’t sure why, but she starts crying. She presses her palms into her eye sockets, not caring about smearing her makeup six ways from Sunday. She doesn’t move from the entryway or even close the door, she just stands and cries. She figures she’s earned it, it’s been a few weeks since she let herself feel truly sad about it, and it’s high time she let go a little. When she feels cried out, she walks to her bedroom and stands for a minute, but for whatever reason she can’t make herself cross the threshold. It seems cold and lonely and sterile. So she does something stupid, and turns and walks into Fitz’s room next door, lies face down on his bed, and falls asleep almost immediately in a heap on top of his covers, her face buried in his pillows. She sleeps through Fitz coming home, Skye having told him about her text.

 

When she wakes up the next morning, it takes her a moment to get her bearings. The smell of Fitz around her sends a flood of memories and it takes her a few seconds to remember what she did. But the confusion returns when she realizes she’s under the covers, her jacket is not on her shoulders but folded neatly on the bedside table, her shoes are off and lined up at the foot of her bed, and a gentle pass with a washcloth must have been made at her face, because she doesn’t feel sticky with makeup and tears. Cautiously, she gets up and opens the door and peeks into the living room. Fitz is slumped on the sofa, snoring, and under the spare comforter they keep in the closet. She realizes he must have come home in the middle of the night, and not only found her in his bed, but taken the time to make her comfortable without waking her. And then gone to sleep on the couch instead of moving her or just laying down next to her, like they had a thousand times. She’s not sure what hurts more. That he was kind and gentle enough to take the time to do that for her, or the fact that he didn’t want to sleep beside her, something they had done since they were children, since long before they ever kissed or even wanted to.

 

As she makes tea and breakfast for both of them in thanks, Simmons wonders if maybe it’s too late to fix it.


	5. Chapter 5

Fitz drops the bomb over a dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese with ham. Simmons knows he’s going to say something, because he can’t stop fiddling with his napkin, and he looks like he’s about to implode. Things have been strained in the two weeks since her disastrous date, and she hates it. Finally, Fitz drops the napkin and clears his throat, looking over at her with an odd mixture of determination and resignation on his face.

 

“I’ve been looking at apartments.”

 

“…What.”

 

“I… I can’t do this, Simmons. I can’t see you every day, it feels too much like when we were together. We’re never going to get over it if we’re acting like we always did.”

 

“But… We lived together before we dated. We were best friends before we dated too, there’s nothing different about that now.”

 

“You can’t just… undo the past, Jemma.” He shrugs and tries to ignore the look of hurt in her eyes. “Yes, we acted much the same as we did dating back when we were just friends. But that’s the problem. You know as well as I do why we acted that way. I’d been in love with you for _years_ when we finally got together. We acted like that, did the things we did, because we were in love with each other. If we’re ever going to be just friends again… we can’t do that.”

 

Simmons is silent and Fitz feels it like a physical presence in the room. His fingers wrap around the edges of his chair because even after all these months he has to fight the urge to each for her when she’s sad. All he wants to do is stand up and walk around the table and wrap his arms around her, tell her he didn’t mean it, he’d never leave her, that he loves her. But he doesn’t. Because this is what she wants.

 

“Oh.” She says finally, and nods stiffly. She puts her spoon down on the table, and towels off her fingers, and nods again, before pushing her chair back and leaving without a word. She slips soundlessly out of the front door, and Fitz grinds the palms of his hands into his eyes, mentally cursing himself, and her, and this entire awful situation they’ve found themselves in.

 

It makes sense, Simmons tells herself as she walks through the cold air of early December. Out of sight, out of mind. But the words ring hollow in her head, because all she can see is grey skies and Fitz is far from out of her thoughts. When her nose is starting to go numb from cold, she walks back to the apartment. The dishes have all been cleaned up, and Fitz is sitting at the table, doodling on a piece of printer paper.

 

“When are you moving?”

 

“Next week.”

 

“I’ll help you move your stuff. If we use both of our cars, you shouldn’t have to rent a truck. Will you have roommates?”

 

“Trip.” He nods, spins the pen in his hands. “And thanks.”

 

“Of course, Fitz.” Her voice sounds tired, but she means it all the same. “You’re still my best friend.”

 

“And you’re mine. Always.”

 

If Fitz had understood her ‘you’re still my best friend’ was supposed to sound a lot more like ‘I love you’, he makes no indication. And if Simmons knows his reply was meant to echo the sentiment, she doesn’t say anything either.

 

Fitz is packing the last of his things in boxes for the move the next day, and Simmons is sitting on the living room floor, silent and cross legged. In front of her is an open box, into which she has neatly folded anything of Fitz’s she still had in her drawers. A t-shirt from their secondary school’s robotics team, six long sleeved pajama tops in varying shades of red, blue, and green, a grey beanie, and three jumpers. On the top of the small pile is the baggy beige jumpy he’d left on her pillow. She reaches one hand into the box and toys with the fabric distractedly. All the boxes around, and she can’t help but think of when they’d moved into the apartment. How adult they’d felt, striking out on their own. How many memories they’d built here, with first holidays away from home, and first kisses, and first morning afters. Ever though her own things were still everywhere, and Fitz hadn’t left yet, it already felt empty and hollow.

 

Fitz enters the room and stops when he sees her on the floor. He clears his throat, and she jerks her head up to look at him, looking sheepish.

 

“Are you sure you need to go?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Alright then. If you think that’s best.”

 

Sitting down beside her, Fitz carefully measures the distance between them and then peers into the box. He lets out a slow breath.

 

“Are you going to be okay?”

 

“Of course. I met you, didn’t I? We’re best friends. That’s how I know I’m gonna be okay.” Simmons silently curses herself for being so sentimental, and Fitz nods carefully.

 

“You can keep that stuff. If you want. I know you love that jumper.”

 

“But it’s stuff a girlfriend would keep, isn’t it?”

 

“Or gifts given by a best friend.”

 

“… Alright.”

 

In the end, the next morning it only takes Simmons’ car to fit all of his things, and they make the short trip to Trip’s apartment just over a few blocks. Simmons almost drives past it on accident, distracted by the heavy feeling in her chest, but turns at the last second, coming to a stop in front of the stoop of his building. They move his stuff into the spare room, and she drives Fitz to their apartment, no, her apartment, she chides herself, to get his car.

 

“See you at lunch tomorrow?” he asks, standing at the door to his car, staring at her expectantly.

 

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” She nods stiffly, her hands held tight together, and turns away, up into the apartment. Fitz drives away, failing at not letting his eyes linger on the doorway in his rearview mirror.

 

It’s just past midnight, and Fitz is sitting on the floor of his now bedroom, staring at a sheets-less mattress. He is surrounded by boxes he can’t seem to bring himself to unpack. He doesn’t hear Trip walk up to lean in the doorway. When Trip coughs, Fitz turns suddenly, looking somewhat war-torn and baffled.  Trip looks down at him sadly and shakes his head.

 

“Go home, man. Fix this.” He says simply, and Fitz stares, dumbstruck. When Trip leans down and hefts two boxes up and moves to remove them to the car, he looks at Fitz, who just nods dumbly and follows suit. Somehow, they manage to jam everything in. And Fitz drives home.

 

The lights are off when he arrives, so he’s quiet as he stacks his boxes in his room and then lays down on his mattress, which he flung lazily on the floor. After a moment, he gets up, picks up his iPod, and leaves for the kitchen. Simmons’ docking station sits on the breakfast bar, and he plugs into it, flipping through his library and then adjusting the volume to be just loud enough to gently rouse Simmons from sleeping or sulking. He turns on the kitchen lights and sets about making a sandwich, after pressing play.

 

Laying in the dark of her room, Simmons is only sort of asleep. But her pillows around her head muffle any sounds, until the music starts. Suddenly, strains of ‘500 Miles’ by The Proclaimers is leaking underneath her door. She bolts up, and opens it out onto the living room and kitchen, and smiles.

 

“Hey.” Fitz says from the kitchen, waving with a pesto covered butter knife.

 

“Hi.” Simmons replies, fighting down a grin. Fitz waves her into the kitchen and pushes a plate, complete with sandwich and crisps and half of one of Simmons’ favorite brand of pickles, and smiles. “You came back.” She says, settling into one of the bar stools.

 

“I came home.” His voice is simple and firm. Simmons grins.

 

“We’re going to be alright.” She says suddenly, and stares over at him intensely.

 

“Yeah. I reckon we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second to last chapter! And if it feels familiar, you've probably seen the first season finale of New Girl, because that was definitely a big influence on the events of this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

Fitz leaving and coming home fixes something. Simmons isn’t sure what it changes, why it makes things shift, but things are better. The air in their apartment no longer feels like it’s made of broken glass. It’s not perfect, she still misses him in a way that makes her chest hurt like a bruise when she breathes, but it’s better. He left her, and made the decision to come back. It makes everything else seem a little less dark in retrospect. Fitz is in class, his last of the semester, before they go home for the holidays. Simmons finished the day before, and is staring blankly at her cell phone on the table. Breaking up with Fitz, and the ensuing pain and awkwardness it caused, has presented her with a problem even she did not anticipate. She has nowhere to go for Christmas. 

After Simmons turned thirteen, even before she left for uni at 15, she spent Christmas with the Fitzes. It had started Christmas eve the year she’d turned 13, after a fight with her parents. When she was younger, Simmons had gotten on famously with her parents. But as she got older, and moved up further in school, and the kids got older and meaner, something had shifted in her, and things just didn’t work like they were supposed to. On that Christmas eve morning her father had said something to her, an offhand jab about how much time she spent on homework, and she’d panicked. It was the first anxiety attack she’d ever had. But instead of attempting to calm her down, tell her she wasn’t dying, hold her and pet her hair, or whatever parents were supposed to do, her father had rolled his eyes. Called her ‘dramatic’ and walked away. Her mother had sighed and dried her hands on a dish towel and stared down her nose, suggesting she ‘collect herself’ before company came over and stop being a disgrace to the family, or she should celebrate elsewhere. So Simmons, even as a child, decided she didn’t need to listen to them, and left, wiping her nose and eyes on the sleeves of her nightgown, and walked barefoot through the snow to Fitz’s house. His mother had answered the door and fussed, dressing her in Fitz’s spare pajamas, and let her stay with them. And every Christmas after that was the same. 

That had been the breaking point in her relationship with her parents. After she left for school, she’d hardly spoken to them. But now, with nowhere else to go for the holiday, she was facing a dilemma. Spend Christmas alone in her apartment, or make amends with her parents and risk having a terrible holiday alone with them. Neither sounded appealing. She’d entertained the idea of spending it with Skye, but the idea of spending any length of time with Skye’s strange little found family, which included, the dean of their college, the dean’s girlfriend, her boyfriend Ward and Ward’s two younger siblings, her other boyfriend Trip, and then Trip’s entire extended family, sounded frankly overwhelming. 

Fitz flung the door open exuberantly, and a drift of snow followed him. He moved to raise his arms triumphantly, but stopped short when he saw Simmons’ hunched shoulders and her intense stare at her phone. 

“Jem?” he asks cautiously, unwinding his scarf and hanging it on a hook by the door. “What’re ya doin’ over there?”

“I’m trying to will myself to call my parents.” 

“Why in all gods’ name would you do that?” his eyebrows shoot up and he pulls a chair up next to hers, managing to resist the urge to put an arm around her. 

“I have to go home for Christmas.”

“Of course you’re going home for Christmas. Home as in to my house. Home as in the Fitz family Christmas populated by a bunch of crazy drunk Scottish women. Like always. Why on earth would you go to your parents for Christmas? That’s an awful idea, Jem.” 

“Wait… you still want me to spend the holidays with you?” she squints and purses her lips, turning to look at him. She looks lost, he thinks, and it hurts him to think she’d ever assume she was unwelcome with him just because she’d broken up with him.

“Of course I do. Especially if your only other option is your parents. Good lord, lass, you think I’d let you spend an entire fortnight with those people?”

“Oh, Fitz.” She said softly, and leaned forward, wrapping him in a hug. He pulled his arms tightly around her, because it was the only thing he could ever do, and she shook her head against his chest. “I’m sorry, I just… I assumed it would be too strange for you.” 

“Best friends first, remember? It’s been nearly a decade, no reason to break tradition now, yeah?” he ran his fingers through her hair and she nodded, the tension slowly draining from her shoulders. 

“Yeah. I guess I just… panicked. I don’t know.” 

“It’s alright. We’re gonna be alright.”

They fly back together, on the same flight, and manage to swap seats with a few people in line until they manage two seats next to each other at the front of the plane. Simmons falls asleep with her head on his shoulder. She claims the sound of the engines has always reminded her of all of Fitz’s weird contraptions, and lulls her easily to sleep. She smells like home, and it takes everything in him not to tell her this when she wakes up as they start their descent. 

“Your family is the best, have I mentioned that yet this week?” Simmons says with a laugh later that week, laying on the floor of Fitz’s room. All his mom’s family had arrived en masse that day an assortment of aunts and a few uncles and a handful of small children with thick accents. When Fitz had told them all about Simmons, about how they’d broken up a few months back, they all had looked at her sadly for a moment and then shrugged their shoulders and hugged her, because she was family regardless. Simmons had managed to avoid crying until the festivities ended, then snuck away to Fitz’s room and bawled her eyes out. Fitz had rubbed circles into her back and then pushed the giant metal tin of popcorn to her, and now they were both stuffing their faces with flavored popcorn. 

Simmons has always liked Fitz’s room. All through their interwoven childhoods it never changed much, new posters sometimes, and more and more books as they got older, but it was always essentially the same. She found in comforting. She’d spent as much, if not more time, in there as a child as her old room. Any number of significant memories had taken place there. Even her first kiss. Much to Skye’s endless amusement, Fitz had been Simmons’ first kiss. They were 14, and she had been terribly curious, and even then he’d been handsome. 

“Leo.” She’d said, her voice more confident than she’d felt.

“Yeah?” he had looked up from his book, some heavy volume about motors. She scooted slowly across the floor until she was right behind him and stared at him intently, causing him to blush and startle. 

“I think I would like to kiss you.” 

“What.”

“Well, I’ve never kissed anyone before. And neither have you, you’d have told me. And you’re my best friend, so who better to be my first kiss than you?”

“Oh, yeah, alright then.” He’d nodded, and then she’d kissed him. It had been strange, and clumsy, and far from the best kiss in the world, but Simmons had always looked back on it fondly. Forcing herself back to the present, Simmons sighed loudly and ate a handful of caramel corn. 

“You’ll ruin your teeth, wee lassie.” Fitz chided in a disturbing good impression of his grandmother. Simmons snorted, tossing a piece of cheese popcorn at him and fist pumping her victory when it landed in his hair. 

“Hey.” She said with a smile, flipping onto her stomach.

“What?”

“You’re my best friend.” she flicked another piece of popcorn at him. 

“You’re a menace.” 

“Leeeeo.”

“Oh hush up, you’re my best friend too.”

The holiday is nice, and minimally awkward. As has been tradition since about sixteen, Simmons and Fitz save their gifts for each other for the privacy of Fitz’s room later in the evening, after a day of stuffing their faces, and playing out in the snow. It feels like home, and if a couple of their hugs linger a little too long, Fitz and Simmons both write it off as the exuberance of the season and let it slide. When the sun has long set, and the younger kids are asleep downstairs and the older adults are having drinks, Fitz and Simmons slip upstairs. Fitz is in pajama pants and thick, hand knit boot socks, and a sweater he got from one of his aunts. It’s a deep forest green and suits him perfect. Simmons is in fleece lined leggings and the thick beige sweater she couldn’t bear to give back to Fitz, and a pair of novelty socks patterned with candy canes. Throughout the day, she kept trying to slip reindeer antlers onto Fitz, claiming he wasn’t festive enough, but he’d shirked them off every time. They fold themselves onto Fitz’s old bed, her up by the pillows leaning on the wall, him cross-legged at the foot.

“It would have been wrong. If you hadn’t been here.” Fitz’s voice is soft, and a little of the awkwardness of the past months creeps into the room. Simmons nods. 

“It would be strange not to be with you for Christmas. You almost moving really scared me. I’m not sure what I’d do if you weren’t part of my life.” 

“I’ll always be part of your life, Jem. Doesn’t matter where we’re living or who we’re dating or what’s going on with this. It’s been too long, lass. You’re stuck with me now.”

“Good. Now stop being a sentimental prat and open your gift.”

“Hey, you started it, ya hypocrite.” He rolls his eyes and takes the box she offers him, reaching down under his bed to pull out hers and press it into her lap. “Just um. Just a warning? I sort of bought your gift a few months ago. As in before we broke up a few months ago? But I liked it too much to return it so. Just keep that in mind, yeah?” Fitz looks nervous, playing with the ribbon on the present Simmons gave him. He’s always appreciated her wrapping, Sure his gifts were neat and the paper nearly seamless, but the way Simmons wrapped presents was an art, all carefully chosen paper and hidden tape and wrapped up in ribbons and matching gift tags. The box is heavy, and he knows it’s probably a book. 

“Do you want to go first?” she tucks a strand of hair behind an ear and looks at him expectantly, her hands fiddling with the sleeves of the sweater. 

“Sure.” He shrugs with one shoulder and finds and tears the tape off with practiced ease, careful not to damage the ribbon. Inside the wrapping is a set of five books, tied with another length of ribbon. He runs a finger down the worn spines and raises an eyebrow “Jem, don’t get me wrong, but don’t I-“ she cuts him off with a shake of the head. 

“Untie them. Look in the front cover of one of them.” 

“Whatever you say.” He shrugs again and pulls the ribbon off, picking up the first of the five books and opening to the first page, with all the copyrights. His eyes scan carefully and his draw drops. 

“Jem.. Jemma, are these…?”

“First editions? Yes, they are. And it was no easy feat, let me tell you.”

“They’re perfect. Good lord, where did you even find five first printings of the Foundation series novels?”

“Skye helped.” She shrugged. 

“Thank you.” His voice is sincere and he smiles broadly, causing Simmons to brush, just slightly. 

“Of course.” Her voice is soft. 

“Go ahead now, open yours.” Fitz nods towards the small box. Simmons nods and unwraps it methodically, as she always does, and even folds the paper before setting her sights to the box it was wrapped around. She understands his warning when she gets to the box, which is very clearly the type of velvet covered clamshell box jewelry comes in. She raises an eyebrow, but Fitz shakes his head, so she just continues on and opens it carefully, not wanting the hinges to jump. Inside the box, nestled in black velvet, is a silver chain. Hanging from the chain is an oval silver locket, with a small piece of sapphire and a small piece of turquoise inlaid on the front. 

“Leo?”

“Open it.”

“Oh.” She says softly after she gently separates the two halves. She clears her throat and reads the inscription she finds within. “’In nature nothing exists alone’… Oh, Leo.” Her eyes tear slightly, and she smiles at the fact that he remembered how much she loved that Rachel Carson quote. The female scientist had been one of her heroes growing up, and she’d been known in moments of emotion or sentimentality to say the quote made her think of him. Like something of their bond was grown from nature, symbiotic, as if it was always meant to happen. 

“I warned you it was from before we broke up.” He says quietly, scratching the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous. Simmons shakes her head and continues staring down at the locket. 

“No, no, it’s beautiful. It’s perfect, really. It’s just… Oh, Leo, I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Come now, Jemma, we’re an engineer and a biochemist, between us I reckon we could fix anything.” He knows what she means, and she knows it, but he needs to lighten the mood, do something to make her laugh, or smile, or do anything but sit and stare. It works, sort of. The edges of her lips crack just slightly upward and she shakes her head again.

“I mean us, Leo. I went and muddled everything up and ruined it, all because I was afraid of not doing what I was ‘supposed to do’ as a young woman. It was stupid. It was stupid because even when I tried to go out with someone else I still felt everything for you I felt when I first fell in love with you. Do you remember that night we got together? When I fell asleep in your bed?”

“Of course, Jem.”

“I told you I thought I’d been in love with you forever. And now I think I’ve forgotten how to not be in love with you.” 

“Do you want to not be in love with me?”

“No. Not at all. Ever since that night I came home and you weren’t there I’ve been wondering why I ever thought it was a good idea to try and stop in the first place. But I’m afraid I’ve mucked around too long and there’s no going back.” 

“No one can ever go back, Jem.” Fitz said softly, crooking a finger toward Simmons. She frowned, but complied scooting toward him on the bed. Gently, he picked up the locket and looped it around her neck, clasping it and sliding her hair back in place. 

“I don’t know how to not love you either.” He whispered softly, just loud enough for her to hear. Simmons spun on her knees in the bed and threw her arms about Fitz’s neck, hugging him tightly. 

“I’m sorry about all of this.” She mumbled into the skin of his neck. He shook his head. 

“You needed to do it. And we came out the other end alright, didn’t we?”

“Yes, I suppose we did.”

“Just think of it as a hypothesis you needed to prove or disprove. An experiment. And now the period for testing is over and you can draw your conclusions about what’s best with confidence.” 

“My conclusion is that you need to kiss me, right now, immediately, because we have six months of being complete and utter prats to make up for.” She smiled softly and Fitz grinned, hooking her hair back over both of her ears and letting his hands drift down over her face. She relished in the touch she’d deprived herself of for so long. He kissed the tip of her nose and she smiled. 

“I think I can agree to that conclusion.” He whispered, smirking at her. 

Hours later, they fell asleep tangled in Fitz’s small bed like they had hundreds of times before. When Simmons woke in the middle of the night, for no particular reason, he head was pressed against Fitz’s chest, and his hands were warm on the skin of her back beneath the beige sweater, and his legs were woven in with hers. She could see snow falling from his bedroom window, just beside the nightstand. It felt very much like the first time she’d fallen asleep in the same sweater, tangled up with the same boy on another cold night in a different bed. She felt warm, and safe, and as at home as she’d ever felt in all her years of living. 

“Leo?” she said softly, her voice close to his ear. 

“Hm?” he answered sleepily.

“I’ve loved you forever.” She whispers, and hopes even half asleep he’ll understand, understand how this night of reunion is an almost perfect parallel to the first time they fell together. And of course he does, because he’s Fitz and she’s Simmons and something about them was always destined to fit. 

“I’ve loved you forever too, Jem” he mumbles back, and presses a sleepy kiss to her forehead and pulling her closer to his chest before he drifts back into sleep. Simmons smiles softly, buries her nose in his throat, and does the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is! The end! This chapter got really long, but I really didn't want to split it into multiple chapters. I hope you've all enjoyed the ride!


End file.
